Sungard Availability Services partners with companies of all types to provide high availability solutions tailored to meet your unique business needs. We work with you to understand your business’ goals and then design IT solutions to address exactly what you need – and not what you don’t. We’re flexible enough to work with the most complex infrastructures and hybrid deployments. We bring the accumulated expertise that comes from more than three decades in IT disaster recovery to solve your availability challenges. We help keep the leading businesses in every major industry continuously available and in control of their critical systems.

Forbes BrandVoice™ allows marketers to
connect directly with the Forbes audience by enabling them to create
content – and participate in the conversation – on the Forbes digital publishing
platform. Each BrandVoice™ is produced
by the marketer.
More on BrandVoice™ here
, or email us directly at
brandvoice@forbes.com.

CIOs, This Is How To Talk To Your CEO About The Cloud

A lot of CIOs are being told by their CEOs, “We need to be in the cloud. Go research it and get us there.”

From the CEO’s standpoint, they know that the cloud is “big.” They may have heard a peer say, “We’re leveraging the cloud in our business,” where “the cloud” is being used as bragging rights. They’ve probably heard about phenomenal cost savings associated with the cloud.

What the CEO often doesn’t understand – and that the CIO does – is that “the cloud” is a term that is used ubiquitously to describe a lot of different things. This leaves the CIO wondering what, exactly, the CEO is looking for “in the cloud.”

If you are a CIO and you find yourself in this position, STOP. It’s time to have a productive conversation with your CEO about the cloud. Here’s how.

Learn how to have a productive conversation about the cloud with your CEO… it may be a game changer!

Change your mindset.

You probably think of yourself as an IT professional. An information officer. A tech guru. Well, when you’re in the CEO’s office, it’s time for a change of mind. What you are is a service provider.

Your job really isn’t to deliver a data center or a server or an operating system. At the end of the day, your job is to support the business and the business’ people, processes, and products. With that change of mindset, your CEO is your ultimate customer.

Talk about the business.

So when the question of the cloud comes up, make it clear to your CEO that “Yes, the cloud is a fancy term used in the industry. It can mean a lot of different things to a lot of people. But at the end of the day, it’s just another way for me to deliver services to you.”

Then, talk about the business. Not the technology. Remember: your CEO is your customer, and the business is what he or she understands best and is most interested in. Here are some business conversation starters:

Are the various business units getting the service they want today? If not, what needs to be improved?

Do we need to increase our business agility?

How is the ease of use of our various applications?

Do we require additional mobility or accessibility?

Are we trying to lower costs?

Will we need to scale up in the future?

What you want to communicate is “I need to identify and target the business improvements you are looking for. Only when I have that information can I research cloud solutions effectively.”

Look for false expectations.

During this business-focused conversation, be on the lookout for any false expectations or misunderstandings the CEO might have. For instance, the CEO might assume that:

“The cloud will let us cut our IT budget by 95%.” Okay, that might be extreme, but you get the point. A lot of CEOs assume that the cloud will slash their IT costs to some degree. Introduce a note of caution here: remind the CEO that the cloud is a tool, and tools cost money. The cost may be more than what you are paying now, it may be less, or it may be the same.

“We can move all our applications to the cloud.” If your applications are less than three years old, that may well be true. But most companies have an IT environment that includes applications and systems that are not cloud-friendly … or that are working perfectly well where they are. There’s a lot of wisdom in the old saying “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

“We can migrate to the cloud overnight.” Even if you can migrate a substantial portion of your systems and applications to the cloud – and it makes sense from a business standpoint to do so – pull the reins in a bit. Encourage your CEO to look at the cloud as a transformation over time: you want to effect change at a reasonable and steady pace to ensure that everything goes smoothly and according to plan.

Collaborate to make strategic decisions.

At the end of the day, you want to change the conversation from “Let’s move to the cloud” to “Let’s make a strategic decision for the business.” Emphasize to the CEO that you want to employ IT solutions that are aligned with the organization’s goals and are respectful of the company’s budget. The cloud will very likely be part of that transformation plan. By working together, you will be able to make decisions that move the business forward.

Post Your Comment

Post Your Reply

Forbes writers have the ability to call out member comments they find particularly interesting. Called-out comments are highlighted across the Forbes network. You'll be notified if your comment is called out.